Mental illness knows no borders

Alexander Hilton of Princeton was 19 years old and a mathematical scholar when he enrolled at the prestigious St. Andrews University in Scotland.

But the academically gifted teen was also something else — a deeply disturbed young man with a long history of mental illness.

In March 2011, in his third term at the college, he allegedly spiked a bottle of wine with methanol and urged it on a fellow classmate, who temporarily went blind and suffered severe nausea and headaches. Days later, Hilton left the college and returned to Princeton. In December of that same year he was charged with attempted murder; he now wears an ankle monitor and remains home with his mother and father.

In hindsight, one could wonder why Hilton's parents allowed their only child to study abroad, a decision that carried grave consequences for two young men and their families. A patient of psychotherapy since he was 7, he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, delusional disorder and other conditions that required treatment and parental support.

"This is a very sad situation," said Hilton's lawyer, Norman Zalkind. "His parents have done the best they could for their child."

No parents are equipped with a crystal ball, especially those struggling with the daunting challenges of raising a mentally ill child. And while advocates note that most clients pose more of a dangerous to themselves than to others, the Hilton case raises tough questions: How much responsibility should parents bear for their adult children? And how do parents of the mentally ill determine when it's safe to cut the cord?

Last week, Hilton's alleged victim filed a civil suit against him and his parents, saying they facilitated his move to Scotland despite his "heavy reliance" on his parents for his extensive psychiatric issues.

But in just one of the interesting aspects of this case, Zalkind agreed during an extradition hearing last year that Hilton never should have gone to St. Andrews, while last week defending his client's presence abroad in response to the civil suit.

In his successful effort thus far to stay a court order that Hilton be returned to Scotland to stand trial, Zalkind argued that his client has suffered a severe mental illness since childhood, is too ill to leave home and needs intensive parental supervision.

"He shouldn't have been away; he should have been home," Zalkind told a federal judge in Boston last year.

But after the alleged victim filed a civil suit last week, Zalkind offered a different perspective when asked in an interview why a mentally ill teenager was sent abroad.

"Children who have problems still go to college," Zalkind said. "Colleges are filled with children who have problems."

Hilton had more problems than most. As a student at St. John's High in Shrewsbury, he required "an elaborate set of supports from his parents" to help him function, Zalkind noted in court documents last year. At St. Andrews, his mental health deteriorated and "he articulated paranoid and delusional ideas."

Students and staff noticed that Hilton acted strangely, yet he remained at St. Andrews. In March 2011, evidence seems to indicate that he spiked a bottle of wine with a deadly ingredient used in antifreeze and gave it to Robert Forbes, a fellow student from Virginia.

Neither Forbes nor Hilton's parents, David Hilton and Suzanne Dolphin, would comment last week. When asked why such a troubled young men was sent abroad to study, Matthew Fogelman, lawyer for the Forbes, declined to speculate.

"That's an excellent question," he said. "And it's one we'd like the answer to."